Manitoba acts earned top honours at this past weekend’s Western Canadian Music Awards in Victoria, including pop artist of the year for Begonia, a francophone artist of the year award for Jocelyn Baribeau, video director of the year for Taylor Brown and two awards for the Brandon-raised Fontine, who took home prizes for rock artist and Indigenous artist of the year.

It was double time for the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra, which for the second consecutive year was named Western Canada’s jazz artist of the year.

The recognition comes on the strength of the WJO’s most recent recording, Forgotten Stories Suite, a project by local woodwind specialist Sean Irvine that blends spoken word, instrumental soundscapes and sung vocals to amplify stories of queer experience.

“As I started becoming a composer, I was thinking about what I had to say,” says Irvine, a musician with a doctorate of jazz performance from the University of Toronto and a master’s in performance and literature from Brandon University.

The disparate parts of himself — queer, Métis, jazz and folk — came together through Forgotten Stories, a project Irvine began composing while studying in Toronto from 2020 to 2023.

“Every day I sat at Rooster, just north of Church Street. I’d order an Americano and write for 2 1/2 hours,” recalls Irvine, referring to a café in Toronto’s historically queer Church-Wellesley neighbourhood.

It was the right place for the artist to delve into the album’s themes of perseverance and persecution.

“Really what this project has all been about was taking folks’ stories and using art music as a form of soundscape, taking those stories and amplifying them through sonic scaping. I wanted to use melody, harmony and orchestration to depict them, leaving enough room for the listener to imagine and connect,” says Irvine.

Among the “forgotten” stories the WJO’s album preserves are reflections by individuals who explained their coming-out or queer life stories, including one from Russia, one from Texas and one from Edmonton. Irvine reflects on his own experiences most directly on the record’s fourth movement, entitled Harold.

Named for the grandfather who raised him, Harold is about Irvine’s wish to tell the late patriarch about who he became.

“I didn’t get to talk to him about who I was,” says Irvine, who has collaborated with Royal Canoe, the Ron Paley Big Band and Ma-Ann Dionisio, among others. “I realized, sort of like a prayer, that this piece can function as a way to tell him I was gay, that I turned out OK, and that I am the person I wanted to be in the end.”

The project’s embrace of spoken word was a way to welcome listeners who might consider themselves as “guests to jazz,” with narration serving as a guide.

The record features contributions by an 18-member orchestra, with Irvine playing the piccolo, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, soprano sax and lead alto sax.

“I’m so happy for Sean, who is an exceptionally hard worker,” says WJO artistic director Richard Gillis, who saw the project through from its earliest phases. “The concept of these stories themselves and the themes explored is probably quite unique in terms of big-band writing, and adding the narration made it even more accessible and perhaps more moving.”

Gillis won’t make a prediction, but the Irvine-led record could earn the WJO another nod at the Junos, scheduled to take place at Winnipeg’s Canada Life Centre on April 4.

Meanwhile, the WJO launches its 29th season on Oct. 17 at U of M’s Desautels Concert Hall with Take Five: Dave Brubeck and the West Coast Swing. Tickets are $49 at winnipegjazzorchestra.com.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com

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